


Missed Opportunity

by chiiyo86



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: Five tells Luther about asking Dad to show him how to time-travel. Luther tells Allison. What should Allison do to stop Five from getting in trouble?
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Missed Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kira_katrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira_katrine/gifts).



> The idea for this fic was born from this post, https://disco-tea.tumblr.com/post/636523867907735552/, which shows that in episode 2 when Allison talks with Pogo as she watches old surveillance tapes of the siblings as kids, you can hear in the background Five telling Luther how he's going to ask Dad to show him how to time-travel. Hope you enjoy it!

_I’m going to ask Dad to show me how to time-travel. I’ll do it tomorrow. And if he doesn’t want to, I’ll try it myself anyway._

This was what Five had declared to Luther a few hours ago, and then Luther had shared it with Allison, who’d told Klaus about it. Klaus must have told Ben and Diego by now, and maybe Vanya too, unless Five had told Vanya about it himself. The point was, by the end of the day all of them were aware of Five’s insane plan and their awareness of it was an electrical current that ran across the siblings all through lessons and training and a stilted dinner. When Dad or Pogo were watching them, which was almost all the time, it was hard for any of them to find a moment to talk with Five about it, but that didn’t keep them from trying to get his attention anyway. Klaus nudged the back leg of his chair during the whole hour of their history lesson, Ben kept twisting in his own chair to catch his eyes, Diego tossed a ball of crumpled paper at his head, and Luther made a grab for his elbow as they went down for dinner. Five only had to blink away to avoid Luther reaching out for him and he haughtily ignored any of the other attempts his brothers made to talk to him. He could be stubborn as a mule when he’d made up his mind about something. As Allison observed him throughout the afternoon, she could tell that there would be no talking him out of this. Five had been rambling non-stop about time-travel for two entire years, was obsessed with it the way Diego was obsessed with showing up Luther and Vanya was obsessed with violin. Five would brush off any of their warnings, because he always thought he knew better.

So while Allison watched her brother and saw how the others failed to talk to him, she pondered her own approach. There was no way Dad would agree to explain time-travel to Five, because he’d made it abundantly clear when the subject had come up before that it would be years before he thought Five ready for it—and when Dad had decided something, you’d have better chance convincing a rock to do tricks than changing his mind. Would Five go through with what he’d said to Luther and try traveling by himself, or would he chicken out? Allison bit her lip as she dutifully wrote the lesson that Pogo was droning on, her pencil scratching over the paper and her mind miles away from the words she was marking down. Diego, Luther and Five had played chicken often enough—to disastrous results—for Allison to be aware of how unlikely that second option was. What would happen to Five if he tried time-travel, then? Was Dad right when he said that it was dangerous and that Five wasn’t ready for it? 

Obviously, a lot of the same thoughts had been running through Luther’s mind during the day, because that evening, as they were sent to their rooms to get ready for the night, he stopped on the doorstep of his room and leaned across the space between their doors to whisper, “You think he’ll do it?”

“Who will do what?” she asked, though she knew who he meant.

“Five. You think he’ll time-travel even if Dad tells him he isn’t ready?”

“Well, you know Five. If he says he’s going to do something…”

“Then he’ll do it,” Luther completed, his forehead rippling in dismay. “Shit. Dad is gonna be so pissed with him. That idiot will be in _so much_ trouble. I should try talking to him again.” He lurched forward, ready to go right now, but Allison stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t,” she said. “You’ll only goad him if you try to boss him around. I’ll take care of it; I’ll talk to him.”

“Maybe we should go together,” Luther suggested. “If both of us tell him he shouldn’t do it, then he’ll have to—”

“No, Luther. Just leave it to me, all right? I’ll _talk_ to him.”

Luther blinked at her. “Oh.” Then, understanding dawning on his face, “ _Oh_. But you can’t—”

“Can you think of a better option? Have you ever talked Five into _not_ doing something when his mind was set on it?”

Luther frowned, but he reluctantly admitted, “No. He’s such a prick sometimes. Well, go on then. Do… do your thing.” 

His eyes flickered over to the hallway, looking, Allison knew, for the cameras that their father had fitted there. Dad always kept an eye on them and his wrath was swifter than the wrath of the improbable God other people believed in. 

“Be careful,” Luther said softly, and Allison gave him a small smile, just crinkling the corner of her mouth.

“Wish me luck,” she said.

She went back into her room to exchange her uniform for her pajamas. There was always a moment around their bedtime when their father was absorbed in his work and wouldn’t be looking at the surveillance monitors. He might review the tapes tomorrow and see Allison wandering out of her room without permission, but in that case, she would just have to deal with the consequences when they arose. It wasn’t the first time she or her siblings had taken that risk. 

She waited until all noises from her siblings’ rooms had subsided and she’d heard the clock downstairs ring 9 o’clock, before she slipped out of her room and padded quietly down the hallway, making her way to the staircase that would lead her to Five’s room on the third floor. When Five wanted to talk to one of them after the lights were out, he just blinked into their room unannounced, so Allison hadn’t been to his own room very often. The house was dark and creaking, its huge frame whining under its own weight. Allison shivered as she climbed the stairs, the back of her slippers slapping her heels. Whenever she snuck out of her room, she was usually with either Luther or Klaus, or together with all of her siblings, and although she would never admit it to any of her brothers, she felt a little uneasy at being out on her own in the dark.

Light was filtering around the frame of Five’s bedroom door, so he must still be up even though they were supposed to turn off their lights as soon as 9 pm struck. Allison lightly knocked on the door, three times in rapid succession, then two more, so Five would know it wasn’t Pogo or Mom—Dad would have just barged into the room—and waited for her brother’s response. 

“Come in,” he said, his voice muffled by the door’s panel.

She opened the door and poked her head inside. Her brother was sitting at his desk and still wore his uniform, his blazer discarded across his bed. His hair was mussed and there was something restless about him, though Allison wasn’t sure whether it was a sign of nervousness or excitement at the prospect of time-traveling tomorrow.

“Hey,” she said.

“What do you want?” he asked. The words were brusque but his tone was only mildly inquisitive.

“Luther says you’re time-traveling tomorrow.”

“Luther should learn how to shut his big mouth.”

“You can’t have seriously thought that he wouldn’t tell any of us about it. You didn’t even make him swear to secrecy. You know you have to make Luther swear if you want him to keep anything secret.”

“It’s not a secret,” Five said testily. “I’m doing it and I don’t care who knows about it.”

Allison rolled her eyes; Five’s need to always get the last word was annoying, but she wasn’t truly here to talk with him. She was here to rumor him out of his mad project. Dad had made it a clear rule that she should never use her power outside of training and missions, and Allison respected that rule—mostly, because Diego could be such a _pain_ —but if Five wouldn’t listen to reason, then what else could she do? She prepared her rumor in her head: _I heard a rumor that you wanted to wait for Dad’s help before you time-traveled._ Five knew her trigger phrase and all of her cues for when she used her power. Her brothers had all trained for it, so they would know to back her up when she was using her power in combat, covering for her during the few vulnerable seconds it took her to tell a rumor. Five wouldn’t be as easily caught off guard as Allison’s usual opponents. She needed to distract him with conversation, lull him into a false sense of safety, and then get her rumor out as fast as she could when he least expected it. 

“Are you sure you can do it?” she asked, leaning against the door frame as though settling in for a longer conversation. “I mean, if Dad says you’re not ready, then don’t you think that he might have a reason for saying it? Maybe he knows what he’s talking about.”

“How, though?” Five exclaimed, pushing at the floor with his feet so his chair would roll back from his desk. “I mean, it’s _my_ power, right? Shouldn’t _I_ know if I’m ready for it? Dad says I’m not ready because he wants to control everything. Look at you, for instance.”

“What about me?” Allison said, defensiveness making her go rigid.

“Your power is that you can make anyone do anything you want, and yet you’re still in that shitty house following the old man’s rules.” Five gave Allison a disdainful look. “Why should you do anything he says? Why shouldn’t _he_ do what you say?”

“What are you talking about? Are you crazy?” Allison hissed. _Dad will hear you, you idiot!_

Walls had ears in their house, and Five knew it, but he was riding such a high from his impending time-traveling that it looked like he didn’t care anymore. It wasn’t as though Allison had never thought about rumoring her dad—when he didn’t bother raising his head from his paperwork, when he cut down one of them with a few words, when he made them train until they couldn’t see straight or stand upright. But the thought was so blasphemous that merely having it made her palms sweat, and even just the words ‘ _I heard—_ ’ could never pass her lips. Dad also knew all of her cues and he would _never_ let himself get caught off guard. She shuddered to imagine the kind of punishment he would give her for trying to rumor him. 

“We’re the ones with powers!” Five went on, having clearly gone insane. “Why should we listen to anything he has to say? I’m sure we could all do way more than we already do. I know _I_ can do more. Allison,” he said, whirling toward her on his desk chair. She was struck by the flame of passion burning in his eyes and it made her lose track of her cunning plan. “if I can time-travel, we could go anywhere! Any _when_! Can you imagine what we could do with that power? Who would find us in an entirely different time period?”

“So if you can time-travel…” Allison swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry and her heart pounding, Five’s words opening the door on a world of possibilities she’d never envisioned. His steadfast confidence was swaying her—what if he really could do it? What, then? “If you manage to time-travel, you’ll really come back for us?”

“Of course,” Five said, more earnestly than was usual for him. “I will test it on my own, practice until I get the hang of it, and then I’ll come back for you guys. I wouldn’t just leave you forever.”

“You promise?”

“Pinky swear,” he said, even holding out his pinky finger to her.

“We’re too old for pinky swears,” Allison said scornfully, and he laughed, shoving his hand back in his shorts’ pocket. “Well, don’t screw it up.”

“As if,” he scoffed.

Later, after her brother had ran away and didn’t come back as he’d promised, Allison would think a lot about her last conversation with him and how it could have gone differently. About how she shouldn’t have let him turn her around and should have just rumored him like she’d planned to. She recited to herself a litany of impotent rumors, every day until hopelessness smothered everything else. _I heard a rumor that you listened to Dad. I heard a rumor that you listened to us. I heard a rumor that you didn’t leave. I heard a rumor that you came back._

The one she kept to the longest was: _I heard a rumor that you were alive._


End file.
